Book Review: Watching the Watchmen

With the movie coming, it seems that a lot of Watchmen related books are coming out. This is one of them. Judging by the number of reviews on Amazon, this book is looking pretty popular.

The construct of the book is great. It's hardcover with a dust jacket. The paper stock is good, thick and low gloss.

Inside the book are tons of initial sketches, designs, storyboards, comic panels, scripts and scribbles. Dave Gibbons really packed in a lot of stuff from their sketchbooks. The scans are so high in resolution you can see the texture of the sketchbooks' paper grain.

The book starts off with the background story on the history of Watchmen, when Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore first met. Then there's the process of creating the comics, getting the readers reactions (one sent in a fan note using plastic bag), to the sending of the last pages off in an overweight parcel to the publisher.

Everything is written in a very condensed manner, the way magazines write their articles. That's not a bad thing though. But for a graphic novel of such caliber, I'm very sure they left out a lot of things.

Also, nothing is mentioned about the plot and the character development. I can't believe they actually left out the story about the story, which is what made Watchmen so popular.

My reservation about the book is on the perceived lack of depth. Overall, this book is strictly for fans of Watchmen, especially those who have the graphic novel.

Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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